han
with us is habitually recognized and practiced, from our own standpoint
of literary decorum. It was not for this feature that French criticism
had already begun to charge her books with dangerous tendencies (thus
contributing largely to noise her fame abroad), as breathing rebellion
against the laws of present society; charges which, so far as _Indiana_
and _Valentine_ are concerned, had, as is now generally admitted, but
little foundation. Each is the story of an unhappy marriage, but there
is no attempt whatever to throw contempt on existing institutions, or to
propound any theory, unless it be the idea--no heresy or novelty in
England at least--that marriage, concluded without love on either side,
is fraught with special dangers to the wife, whose happiness is bound up
with her affections. It was the bold and uncompromising manner in which
this plain fact was brought forward, the energy of the protest against
a real social abuse, which moved some critics to sound a war-cry for
which, as yet, no just warrant had been given.

Besides these two novels, containing full proof of her genius, if not of
its highest employment, there appeared, late in 1832, that remarkable
novelette, _La Marquise_, revealing fresh qualities of subtle
penetration and clear analysis. The flexibility of her imagination, the
variety in her modes of its application, form an essential
characteristic of her work. Not by any single novel, nor, indeed by
half-a-dozen taken at random, can she be adequately represented.

When in the winter of 1832 Madame Sand returned with her little girl to
Paris after spending the autumn, as usual, at Nohant, it was to rather
more comfortable quarters, on the Quai Malplaquet. The rapid sale of her
books was placing her in comparatively easy circumstances, and giving
fresh spur to her activity. But her situation was transforming itself
fast; the freedom of obscurity was lost to her for ever from the day
when the unknown personage, George Sand, became the object of general
curiosity--of curiosity redoubled in Paris by the rumors current there
of her exceptional position, eccentric habits, and interesting
personality.

The celebrated portrait of her by Eugene Delacroix was painted in the
year 1833. It is a three-quarter view, and represents her wearing her
_quasi_ masculine _redingote_, with broad _revers_ and loosely knotted
silk neck-tie. Of somewhat later date is a highly interesting drawing by
Calamatta, well-